Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[romad1]

This couldn't be more spot on with the last 4 months of war could it?

The rebels have Kalashnikov-based weapons for pete's sake.

I'm so there for the Stellen Skarsgard.

[romad1]

Human garbage espionage agent that cloaked himself as a friend to civil rights and libertarians 

 

[1776]

WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

OPEC Weighs Suspending Russia From Oil-Production Deal

Some OPEC members are exploring the idea of suspending Russia’s participation in an oil-production deal as Western sanctions and a partial European ban begin to undercut Moscow’s ability to pump more, OPEC delegates said.

 

[romad1]

This is very good

 

[Screwball]

7 hours ago, 1776 said:

WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

OPEC Weighs Suspending Russia From Oil-Production Deal

Some OPEC members are exploring the idea of suspending Russia’s participation in an oil-production deal as Western sanctions and a partial European ban begin to undercut Moscow’s ability to pump more, OPEC delegates said.

 

Your quote is not quite the full story of our global energy logistics, politics, and most importantly - price - of crude oil.  Sanctions matter to prices, especially on the world market.

Our world depends (at this time) on oil.  The cost of energy is trickle down, and expensive oil hurts the people who can least afford it.

Crude hit 120 bucks a barrel early this morning, rolled over around 115 this afternoon (after some OPEC horseshit). Back in 2008 (July, check me) crude hit 147/bbl - and we all know what happened between 2008-2010 (some will blame the banks (raises hand)) but the burden on our people due to the cost of gas helped blow up that bubble.

This country cannot, at this time, absorb 4 1/2 to 5 dollar prices at the pump for an extended period of time.

The price of our gas is dictated by the price of crude on the world markets. Watch the crude tape - that will tell you how bad shit will get - the higher crude goes, the worse it will be.

Everything else is all bullshit.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

Your quote is not quite the full story of our global energy logistics, politics, and most importantly - price - of crude oil.  Sanctions matter to prices, especially on the world market.

Our world depends (at this time) on oil.  The cost of energy is trickle down, and expensive oil hurts the people who can least afford it.

Crude hit 120 bucks a barrel early this morning, rolled over around 115 this afternoon (after some OPEC horseshit). Back in 2008 (July, check me) crude hit 147/bbl - and we all know what happened between 2008-2010 (some will blame the banks (raises hand)) but the burden on our people due to the cost of gas helped blow up that bubble.

This country cannot, at this time, absorb 4 1/2 to 5 dollar prices at the pump for an extended period of time.

The price of our gas is dictated by the price of crude on the world markets. Watch the crude tape - that will tell you how bad shit will get - the higher crude goes, the worse it will be.

Everything else is all bullshit.

then again, CA has the biggest economy in the US and gas has been $5.00 there pretty much since forever. Even in MI,  $5.00 fuel doesn't seem to be bothering people much. You should have seen the boat traffic in the Huron River lake system (Strawberry/Baseline/Portage etc) this weekend. The most in two or three years and that is 100% discretionary fuel burn.  

I think for the US the bigger issue will be if/when export capability for NatGas gets larger, domestic NatGas prices could start up as stranded domestic capacity finds the international market. Transportation fuel use is pretty elastic, heating and industrial fuel consumption less so.

Edited June 1, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

Somebody's Bots were spreading this "Durham Pain is Coming" theme.   How is that working out for ya?

[romad1]

Yep, another bot effort that permeated Henry Kissinger's mind as well

 

[romad1]

I've been scanning this twitter feed.  He's interesting. 

I'm actually enthusiastic for what comes after conflict in Ukraine.  I've seen enough to see what a democratic-ish country could be.  Lots of English spoken, growing respect for the rule of law and the right attitude toward Russia.   I wonder if Germany doesn't feel threatened by them in the EU.

[romad1]

Speaking of bots, Russia seems to be putting out something called "Swedengate" to disrupt Sweden's entry into NATO.

[romad1]

Interesting.

 

[romad1]

Was listening to some political reporter talk about the significance of MLRS HIMARs and wondered to myself how the afternoon news on various networks can't find recently retired female officers to talk about such things to the lay person.  Hearing the non-expert reporter talk about shoot and scoot and suppression of enemy air defenses was hard.

 

[gehringer_2]

recent reading seems to be indicating that the Ukrainian war plan is to fall back strategically in Donbas, ceding ground but extending the Russians as much as possible while counter attacking at Kherson to gain more strategically important targets.  Russians have begun to realize their peril and are scrambling to re-enforce that flank. We may see the first test of Ukrainian capability to take offensive initiative.

Edited June 2, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

recent reading seems to be indicating that the Ukrainian war plan is to fall back strategically in Donbas, ceding ground but extending the Russians as much as possible while counter attacking at Kherson to gain more strategically important targets.  Russians have begun to realize their peril and are scrambling to re-enforce that flank. We may see the first test of Ukrainian capability to take offensive initiative.

My guess is that the objective of the Ukrainian war effort in the coming months will be to reconquer the black sea coast in a way that injures Putin's overall goal of creating a land bridge. 

[Jim Cowan]

9 hours ago, romad1 said:

My guess is that the objective of the Ukrainian war effort in the coming months will be to reconquer the black sea coast in a way that injures Putin's overall goal of creating a land bridge. 

That would be the most visible positive outcome.

[gehringer_2]

excellent read:

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-off-ramps?s=r

Quote

Some observers of the Russo-Ukrainian war seem to think that its greatest danger is that Ukraine will win, or win too quickly, and that this will be uncomfortable for Putin, and that we should care. 
            This is a deeply perverse way of seeing things.  Putin has chosen to fight a war of aggression and destruction in Ukraine.  Wherever Russia controls Ukrainian territory, Russians commit genocidal crimes against citizens of Ukraine, including mass rape, mass killing, and mass deportation.  A democracy is defending itself against an autocracy, and the fate of democracies hangs in the balance.  The Russian hydrocarbon oligarchy is giving us a foretaste of cataclysm that awaits if we do not free ourselves from oil and gas.  Russia blockades the Black Sea and halts food exports, threatening to spread death by starvation to tens of millions of people this year.  Those are the kinds of things we should be worrying about, not Putin's self-image.

            Yet there is an even more basic problem with this reasoning, which arises from a false understanding of how power in Russia works. 

            The Russian media and political system is designed to keep Putin in power regardless of what happens in the outside world.  Russian politics takes place within a closed information environment which Putin himself designed and which Putin himself runs.  He does not need our help in the real world to craft reassuring fictions for Russians.  He has been doing this for twenty years without our help. 

            Ukrainians understand this, which is one reason that they become irritated when we suggest that they concede territory or victory to Russia because of a concern about Putin's internal state.  They know that this is not only unjust but pointless.  What matters in Russian politics is not Putin's feelings nor battlefield realities but the ability of the Putin regime to change the story for Russian media consumers.  It is senseless, as the Ukrainians understand, to sentence real people of real territories to suffer and die for the sake of Russian narratives that do not even depend upon the real world.

 

[gehringer_2]

War in the  IT age?

 

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

46 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

War in the  IT age?

"have you tried turning it off and on again?"

[1984Echoes]

On 6/2/2022 at 6:35 AM, romad1 said:

My guess is that the objective of the Ukrainian war effort in the coming months will be to reconquer the black sea coast in a way that injures Putin's overall goal of creating a land bridge. 

They won't be able to do that. Militarily.

Russia has sea (of Azov) access and land access and Crimea access to re-supply those areas. Ukraine has no access except to attack them head on from the interior of Ukraine.

I predict they will be able to push Russian forces back across the Dnieper River (taking back Kherson Oblast) which would push them further away from Odessa and Russia's aim to take Odessa and create a land bridge all the way from the Donbas to Moldova (the Russian held Moldovan territory of Transdniestra). And that they may be able to take back some towns and territory in the Donbas and Zaporizhia regions.... from the direction of Kharkhiv southward, not from the coast inwards.

This doesn't affect Russia's current hold on a land bridge to Crimea. Russia holds this, they already have it, and will not let go of it, and I believe, will be able to maintain their hold on it.

The most the Ukrainians will be able to reconquer, in my opinion, is the Kherson Oblast and the inner fringes of Zaporizhia and the Donbas.

[1984Echoes]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

War in the  IT age?

 

"It WORKED!!!"

Awesome phone call.

[romad1]

9 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

They won't be able to do that. Militarily.

Russia has sea (of Azov) access and land access and Crimea access to re-supply those areas. Ukraine has no access except to attack them head on from the interior of Ukraine.

I predict they will be able to push Russian forces back across the Dnieper River (taking back Kherson Oblast) which would push them further away from Odessa and Russia's aim to take Odessa and create a land bridge all the way from the Donbas to Moldova (the Russian held Moldovan territory of Transdniestra). And that they may be able to take back some towns and territory in the Donbas and Zaporizhia regions.... from the direction of Kharkhiv southward, not from the coast inwards.

This doesn't affect Russia's current hold on a land bridge to Crimea. Russia holds this, they already have it, and will not let go of it, and I believe, will be able to maintain their hold on it.

The most the Ukrainians will be able to reconquer, in my opinion, is the Kherson Oblast and the inner fringes of Zaporizhia and the Donbas.

I wouldn't place a bet either way.  The Russians are hammering the Ukrainians in the East but they are stretched thin in the South.   The bridge that exists to Crimea could be destroyed.   if Ukraine were to cut the land bridge (mariopol) and cut that, they would severely hamper Russia's efforts in the extreme South West near Kherson. 

[1984Echoes]

10 minutes ago, romad1 said:

I wouldn't place a bet either way.  The Russians are hammering the Ukrainians in the East but they are stretched thin in the South.   The bridge that exists to Crimea could be destroyed.   if Ukraine were to cut the land bridge (mariopol) and cut that, they would severely hamper Russia's efforts in the extreme South West near Kherson. 

I don't think it will be a problem for the Ukrainians to retake Kherson... it's on the west side of the Dnieper and the Crimea and everything else the Russians have take is on the east side. One bridge for the Russians to re-supply Kherson and that is easily accessed by Ukrainians to include blowing it up.

But the Ukrainians have no access to Mariupol, the bridge to Crimea, nor a great ability to cut the land bridge. Aside from sabotage. And sabotage is limited in scope. It can't retake anything, it can only do the limited and direct damage of that act.

Ukraine is at a severe disadvantage retaking any of the land bridge to Crimea except at the inner fringes...

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

I don't think it will be a problem for the Ukrainians to retake Kherson... it's on the west side of the Dnieper and the Crimea and everything else the Russians have take is on the east side. One bridge for the Russians to re-supply Kherson and that is easily accessed by Ukrainians to include blowing it up.

But the Ukrainians have no access to Mariupol, the bridge to Crimea, nor a great ability to cut the land bridge. Aside from sabotage. And sabotage is limited in scope. It can't retake anything, it can only do the limited and direct damage of that act.

Ukraine is at a severe disadvantage retaking any of the land bridge to Crimea except at the inner fringes...

the other thing that is true however is that as long as Ukraine fights in a way to preserve their people, the Russians have no hope to win a war of material attrition against the US, let alone the US and the EU. US DOD could lose the whole Russian GDP in its budget and hardly notice. The Russians are an army that has already past it's peak strength, Ukraine? Maybe not so much. Of course at that point it becomes as much a matter of politics in various nations as fighting strategy.

Edited June 3, 2022 by gehringer_2

[1984Echoes]

The key will be what weapons the West (US & EU) sends to Ukraine and when.

If we send artillery pieces that can outdistance and out-accuracy Russia's... then Ukraine's chances of re-taking territory increase dramatically. They're (the U.S.) talking about HIMARS. If that actually happens, the conversation will change...

[romad1]

is ever thus.  It appears that the street fighting favors Ukraine but the Russians have ways of making streets into rubble.